Is Luxembourgish language doomed?

A man who claims the Luxembourgish language is doomed has launched a petition in a bid to save it.

11.03.2015

A man who claims the Luxembourgish language is doomed has launched a petition in a bid to save it.

Petition number 482 calls on the government to do something for the national language, “in order for it not to disappear, because we want to remain what we are.”

“When you walk through town, you think you are abroad. You hear foreign languages being spoken to such a great extent,” the petitioner writes, adding: “What's happening to the Luxembourgish language when it isn't insisted upon that the people who come to work here don't even have to learn the language or people living here for years in the country don't have to learn it.”

He laments the fact that Luxembourgish is not commonly spoken by doctors in hospitals or in shops and that Luxembourgers are beginning to mix French words into the Luxembourgish language.

He concludes: “This is not racism but we have to uphold what we are,” a nod to the national motto “mir wëlle bleiwen wat mir sinn” (we want to remain what we are).

The petition was launched a short time before it was announced that the language's status is to be elevated in the Luxembourg constitution.

The precise wording for the constitution will describe Luxembourgish as the “language of the Luxembourgers”, an improvement on the current statement that the “state will promote the Luxembourgish language”.

The most recent figures provided by UNESCO estimate that around 390,000 speak the Luxembourgish language, of which more than 265,000 say it is their main language. In 2011, UNESCO included Luxembourgish in its list of languages considered "vulnerable", because its use is restricted to certain places, for example at home.